What do most Indians not know about other Indian cultures?

India is a very multicultural country. What are the little-known things about other cultures Indians don’t know?

Answer by Raakhee Venugopal:

Kerala

1 – Hindu Nair weddings do not have a sacrificial fire. We don’t do the saptapadior seven vows taken while walking around the holy fire either.

The bride and groom walk holding hands around the dais thrice. That’s all. There is no need for a priest to conduct the marriage, unless it is at a temple, wherein the temple priest just brings the thaali after doing the necessary rituals to the deity and hands it over to the groom. There is no chanting of the wedding mantras.

2 – Keralites do not celebrate Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi and Navratri with as much fervor as they celebrate Onam and Vishu. They are just…well…festivals. Holi? What is Holi? 😛

3 – The Nair community is probably the last of the snake-worshipers of Kerala, with most of our ancestral homes still maintaining serpent groves where regular rituals are conducted for serpents that we believe are responsible for protecting our families. The word Nair itself is said to have been derived from ‘Naagar’ and were descendants of the Nagavanshi clan. Snake idols are also a common sight in every temple in Kerala. Read more here –>Sarpa Kavu

4 – It is prohibited to make any bodily contact with the temple priest when he is on temple duty and it is absolutely taboo to even set foot inside the sanctum sanctorum of temples. Besides this, there are many areas of the temple that is strictly out of bounds for devotees and visitors. This is observed very religiously, much to the surprise of visitors from other states of India where such observances are not kept. The temple priest has to maintain a very high level of shuddham or purity while he is on duty.

5 – Despite the extremely high levels of literacy, Malayali people are largely conservative when it comes to social issues. There are also notable differences in the cultures of the regions of Malabar, Cochin and Travancore – the erstwhile kingdoms. …though we share some common loves like Kathakali, Melam, Mammootty-Mohanlal and Sadya